Victimization doesn't always make a victim: Underlying mechanisms influencing the relationship between peer victimization and adolescent adjustment

This study assessed the effects of perceived victimization status on adolescents' psychological and school adjustment over the duration of one academic year. Additionally, the impact of underlying mechanisms facilitating or impeding adolescent victims' adjustment was investigated. Data were collected from 2003 ethnically diverse middle school students during the Fall and Spring semesters of their sixth grade year. The following hypotheses were tested: (1) the greater adolescents' self-perceived victimization status at the beginning of the school year, the greater their psychological maladjustment (i.e., the greater their loneliness, depression, and social anxiety; the poorer their self-worth) and the poorer their school adjustment (i.e., the poorer their academic performance and teacher-perceived academic engagement and good student behavior) at the end of the school year; (2) characterological self-blaming attributions and psychological maladjustment intervened between adolescents' self-perceived victimization status and their school adjustment over time; (3) psychological maladjustment and academic motivation intervened between adolescents' self-perceived victimization status and their school adjustment over time. Structural equation modeling analyses confirmed all of the aforementioned hypotheses. The results suggested that feelings of victimization impeded adolescents' psychological and school adjustment over time. Moreover, perceived victimization status at the beginning of the school year predicted psychological and school maladjustment at the end of the school year equally well for males and females and for adolescents from White, African-American, Latino, and Asian ethnic backgrounds. Ultimately, however, the extent to which victims experienced adjustment difficulties was determined by their tendencies to attribute episodes of victimization to factors that were internal, stable, and uncontrollable (i.e., their characterological self-blaming attributional tendencies), their levels of psychological maladjustment, and their academic self-efficacy beliefs, mastery, and performance-approach goal orientations (i.e., their academic motivation).